The Rendezvous

“You! Stop right there! If you move tirin, I go blow up your brain.”

I slowly saw a vivid image of my head blowing up to bits, the grey matter flying in eight directions. I stopped dead in my tracks, the image of my flying grey matter strongly keeping me rooted to the spot. He had passed his message alright, with vivid imagery at that.

“Don’t shoot! I won’t take another step but don’t shoot!” My knees were jerking like a five-year-old trying to do the ‘Stanky leg’ dance. If all he wanted was my money and phones, I would give him alright. I just didn’t want to get hurt or killed, I loved my life way too much for that.

“Okay, fine! I’m going to hand you my bag right now. All I want to ask of you is that .you please take out the cash and phones inside. There are some really important documents in there that don’t even belong to me, so I beg you, return my handbag to me after taking the cellphones and cash. Please, I’m begging you.”

He seemed reasonable enough and I guess that was what motivated me to be bold enough to demand the items that should get stolen from me by my robber.

He stared at me hard, wondering about the kind of lady that instructed the robber on what to steal from her in a robbery. He must have thought me mad, I’m sure.

“Aunty, you sure say you dey okay so? You dey tell me wetin I go take and wetin I no go take. I be like a small pikin for your eye? Abi you don drink kai kai before you comot go office this night? If you no wan make I blow that small mouth wey you dey use dey talk piririn piririn like parrot for there, shut up, or I go take this gun shut am up for you!”

I was wrong, terribly wrong. He wasn’t reasonable at all.

No point trying to reason with this one. He seemed better looking and well dressed compared to the image I had of what a robber would look like…

Upon closer look, I added yeah… all that handsome is going to waste just like that. Oh well, if I do get to die here, at least I know it was in the hands of a good looking man.

Then in a whisper, too bad, I won’t get to taste that juicy meat though. He looks so thick and strong, I won’t mind getting a bit of that before I bite the dust. I sighed heavily.

“Wetin dey do this one way she dey breathe like person wey wan enter labor? Abeg, stand firm! No dey lose concentration!” His bark of a command sent ripples down my spine. It was almost as if my bones, muscles, tissues, tendons, cartilages, and every cell in my body had gotten all they needed to start functioning optimally again. My shaky legs received balance and my sweaty palms became dry. It felt weird that what was supposed to scare me off became the reason why I received boldness again.

“Okay! I’m not scared of you anymore. Do what you want to? Take what you want. I’m not scared of you anymore!” I barked back.

I regretted it almost immediately because within split seconds I saw him beside me, his lips very close to my left ear. I subconsciously held my breath thinking his mouth would smell, but oddly enough, they were minty fresh and it wasn’t just his breath. He smelt of wood and nature, there was something about that manly scent that intoxicated me. I was confused.

What kind of armed robber dresses responsibly, smells minty fresh, wears aftershave and such exquisite body spray? Is he even an armed robber like this? Any other night, I would have swooned over, maybe even collected the number of a good looking man like him if I saw him walking past me on the road. This world truly is a strange place. I thought.

I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t paid any attention to what he had been saying. His “you dey hear me so?!” jolted me to a start. I knotted my brows in confusion, obviously not sure of what he had been talking about.

“No, sir. Please, what were you saying?” I muttered sheepishly. He raised his right hand high up and I cowered in fear, I was so sure I was gonna get it for ‘losing concentration’ while he was talking to me.

His hand came down fast but I didn’t hear any sound or feel any skin contact. I had shut my eyes but I had to see what was going on. I raised my head slightly first, then opened my left eye. I still couldn’t get a clear view of the situation at hand so I opened my right eye and eventually stood up straight to see his forefinger pointed directly at my nose, his well-manicured nails touching its tip. I gulped a breath of air as my nose seemed to not be taking in enough air for me at the moment.

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The headlights from a moving vehicle that flashed past our crime scene revealed a clear image of my attacker. Standing with a pointed index finger at me was my 6ft, coffee-brown hunk of an attacker. He looked ravishingly promising. I could see a twinkle in his eyes or maybe it was from the headlights, but that was not my concern. “I wanna lie in those arms.” It was all I could think of at the moment.

“I been dey tell you to say, e be like say the documents wey you bin call important documents go bring me plenty money pass the money wey dey inside your bag and phones combined. Na that one I wan collect now, na your oga I wan talk to.”

My ears we’re spinning. Pidgin wasn’t my forte but I knew that I understood enough to know that he was interested in the very important documents I was given to keep safe in the bank that morning but couldn’t get to because of my unsettled tummy. “How do I explain myself to Mr. Tobi now? What do I do?!” I thought hard to myself.

He saw the discomfort his announcement had put me in and he seemed proud of himself that he had scored a jackpot. I was not going to give him pleasure.

“I can’t give you my boss’s number. His phone got stolen yesterday.” He was no longer smiling. His sexy, chiseled manly face slowly became a scare. I threw him a defiant look, I wasn’t going to back down either.

He stared at me long and hard as though I was a mutant that he had never seen or heard about before. He seemed puzzled, intrigued in fact.

“You know, in all my years of putting on this act I’ve never met any lady as bold as you. You’ve won me over body, soul, and spirit. I’ve finally met my woman. Nice to meet you, my name is Vincent. Vincent Amejuma.”

I gawked at him like a fool for three solid minutes. It wasn’t what he had just said that shocked me, it was how he said it. Swimming in my ears was his rich baritone of a voice producing clean British accented English.

Ummm… where did the British accent come from? What happened to the pidgin English that had been breaking bottles in my head? Where is this melody coming from? The questions racing through my head were endless.

He saw the confusion on my face and opted to ease my troubled forehead that had folded in deep thoughts by explicating further.

“As I confessed some minutes ago, my name is Vincent… C.E.O of Vee Bells. I have been…”

I was shaking “Vee Bells? The Vee Bells?? Vee… Vincent! It adds up now! Wait did I just hear C.E.O??” He seemed embarrassed at my outburst. His first show of weakness. Guess he’s just like every one of us. I thought to myself.

“Well, yeah… I’m that Vee. I’m a famous wedding planner that has organized so many magnificent weddings in his lifetime but has never come close to falling in love, talk more about getting married. Hell, I haven’t even met any girl I like. Until I met you tonight, that is.” He flashed me a white boyish smile that caused my heart to melt like ice cream on a sunny Sunday.

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“Y-You like m-me? How is that?” I replied foolishly. He laughed; two short, deep notes that made me want to wrap my arms around his shoulders and place my head on his chest so that I could feel the vibration that coursed through his body while he laughed.

“Yeah, I do. A lot. Like I said earlier, I have met a lot of ladies but none of them appealed to me. They were mostly ass kissers or spoilt brats from rich families. Eventually, I gave up on all of them and opted to find myself. It wasn’t the surest or safest of ways but it was my way. I wanted someone real, bold, strong-hearted, smart, and sexy. When I saw you passing, my instincts told me you were the one so I decided to make sure I wasn’t wrong.

“But why me? You do know that this whole scenario could have gone wrong right? What if I had called the police? Or called my boss and he called the police? Or passersby had shown up to defend me by hitting you on the head? You could have hurt yourself in so many ways. Why this?”

I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Vincent said he was interested in me. “I don’t believe in fairy tales. This story can’t be mine, it just can’t. Fairy tales are for girly girls, rich girls, royalty, not a poor trying-to-make-it-big girl like me.”

He looked at me long and hard till I felt naked under his scrutinizing eyes. A sudden feeling of self-awareness made me curse myself inwardly for not following my guts that morning when I was dressing for work. I should have dressed better. I mean, I can do so much better than this now. I wailed inwardly till he set me free from my turmoil.

“Hmmm… you don’t look ‘wannabe-ish’ to me though. I think you have a very good dress sense and it’s obvious you care for your skin a lot. It’s literally glowing in the dark, honey.” The way he said the honey made my heart jerk in its cage.

“H-ho-honey??” Again, I sounded retarded. It was all happening so fast. One minute I was begging to have my life spared in the hands of my attacker, the next minute, I was hearing a smooth bass voice telling me that he was the C.E.O of every Nigerian lady’s dream wedding planning team, and apparently, he likes me. This was a lot to process at the moment.

“Yeah, honey. I like you, though I’ll be honest that I don’t even know your name yet.” He chuckled shyly.

Damn, he looks so good. I was starting to like this familiar stranger, I mean, I had always loved him from afar. He was one of my celebrity crushes but the entire incident felt surreal.

“You know… I half hoped you would get the cue and introduce yourself to me after I told you that I didn’t know your name, but I’ll ask.” He cleared his throat before going on. “Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Vincent Amejuma…” He had stretched his right arm out for a handshake. I stared at it for many seconds before replying.

“And I’m Theola. Theola Ross.” He seemed a bit surprised so I asked him why and he said the name sounded too ‘White’ for a Nigerian. I explained that I was from Rivers and most of us had ‘White-ish’ names because our ancestors had sexual relations with the whites when they came and they also named many of them.

“I see… well it’s a pleasure to meet you Theola. The same instincts that told me to walk up to you tonight tell me I have a bright future with you. I think so too. Wanna prove me right?” then he winked.

I laughed back- a carefree, deep, hearty laugh- something that I had not done all evening out of anxiety. He was trying so hard so I gave him some points for efforts. “Sure. I’d like to prove that to you.”

Then I took his outstretched arm and walked elbows interlocked into his Mercedes G Wagon parked by the side of the road, a little walk away from our meeting point.